Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Act I, scene i, page 2

page 1 of 2

Summary

On a dark winter night outside Elsinore Castle in Denmark,
an officer named Bernardo comes to relieve the watchman Francisco. In
the heavy darkness, the men cannot see each other. Bernardo hears
a footstep near him and cries, “Who’s there?” After both men ensure
that the other is also a watchman, they relax. Cold, tired, and apprehensive
from his many hours of guarding the castle, Francisco thanks Bernardo
and prepares to go home and go to bed.

Shortly thereafter, Bernardo is joined by Marcellus, another watchman,
and Horatio, a friend of Prince Hamlet. Bernardo and Marcellus have
urged Horatio to stand watch with them, because they believe they
have something shocking to show him. In hushed tones, they discuss
the apparition they have seen for the past two nights, and which
they now hope to show Horatio: the ghost of the recently deceased
King Hamlet, which they claim has appeared before them on the castle
ramparts in the late hours of the night.

Horatio is skeptical, but then the ghost suddenly appears
before the men and just as suddenly vanishes. Terrified, Horatio
acknowledges that the specter does indeed resemble the dead King
of Denmark, that it even wears the armor King Hamlet wore when he battled
against the armies of Norway, and the same frown he wore when he
fought against the Poles. Horatio declares that the ghost must bring
warning of impending misfortune for Denmark, perhaps in the form
of a military attack. He recounts the story of King Hamlet’s conquest
of certain lands once belonging to Norway, saying that Fortinbras,
the young Prince of Norway, now seeks to reconquer those forfeited
lands.

The ghost materializes for a second time, and
Horatio tries to speak to it. The ghost remains silent, however,
and disappears again just as the cock crows at the first hint of
dawn. Horatio suggests that they tell Prince Hamlet, the dead king’s
son, about the apparition. He believes that though the ghost did
not speak to him, if it is really the ghost of King Hamlet, it will
not refuse to speak to his beloved son.

Analysis

Hamlet was written around the year 1600 in
the final years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who had been
the monarch of England for more than forty years and was then in
her late sixties. The prospect of Elizabeth’s death and the question
of who would succeed her was a subject of grave anxiety at the time, since
Elizabeth had no children, and the only person with a legitimate
royal claim, James of Scotland, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots,
and therefore represented a political faction to which Elizabeth
was opposed. (When Elizabeth died in 1603, James
did inherit the throne, becoming King James I.)

It is no surprise, then, that many of Shakespeare’s plays
from this period, including Hamlet, concern transfers of power from
one monarch to the next. These plays focus particularly on the uncertainties,
betrayals, and upheavals that accompany such shifts in power, and
the general sense of anxiety and fear that surround them. The situation
Shakespeare presents at the beginning of Hamlet is that a strong
and beloved king has died, and the throne has been inherited not
by his son, as we might expect, but by his brother. Still grieving
the old king, no one knows yet what to expect from the new one,
and the guards outside the castle are fearful and suspicious.

A rationalist, by definition, is logical. And if he--not his friend, not his mother, not his pastor--sees a ghost, he will acknowledge as such. That's why Horatio freely admitted upon seeing the evidence. So I'm not sure what "blind rationalist" means.

Revenge, ambition, lust and conspiracy return to the heads of those that conjured them in Hamlet, completely annihilating two families--the innocent with the guilty. Check out my blog on the play (includes current link to PBS Great Performance video of production of play):